Most press release services cannot offer you metrics for tracking your release’s performance beyond how it performed on that service’s own website. The reason for this is that their newswires – hopefully – are extensive and far-reaching, a combination of online outlets and print media outlets – and therefore it is very difficult to keep track of one release when it is sent to so many hundreds or thousands of places.

We previously blogged about how to decipher the statistics provided by the press release service itself, using examples from 24-7 Press Release Newswire’s own service. Now we will talk about some ways to track the performance of your release on the wire at large.

The best and most comprehensive way to track your release’s performance is to use a clipping service (also known nowadays as a media monitoring service). The very purpose of these services is that they spend the time scouring the web and media outlets for mentions of your company, your release and your news and come up with a fairly comprehensive snapshot of where your release or company is being discussed on the web.

This service can be costly, however, so may not be feasible – they can be several hundred dollars per release, which can equal or exceed the cost of writing and distributing the release!

If you are looking instead for a free and easy option for tracking your press release performance online, check back soon for Part 3 which discusses just that.